MRI animal handling accessories

For high animal throughput, animal welfare and monitoring

AutoPac

AutoPac™ is a motor driven automatic positioning system that simplifies animal handling enables high animal throughput in preclinical routine applications. A variety of animal beds tailored for different animal species, applications and RF coils are available. They feature anesthesia and fixation devices including body temperature stabilization.

Monitoring & Triggering

Many MRI/MRS applications require triggered acquisition to avoid motion artefacts. In addition, animal care regulations require continuous monitoring of the status of the animal in the magnet. For this, Bruker offers a stand-alone unit that can trigger and gate on a variety of biological signals (ECG, respiration, temperature) and can record all those tracks for later correlation to an image time series. The ECG-sensors are equipped with special filters to suppress gradient/ RF-interference and additional user-defined sensors can be incorporated.

Animal Table & Slider System

A preparation table is attached to the magnet and holds a slider system onto which the different animal beds are placed for fast and reproducible positioning of the animals. The idea is that several animal beds can be used in parallel, e.g. one on the slider in the magnet for data acquisition, one for animal preparation and one is undergoing cleaning.

Animal Beds & Cradles

A variety of animal beds tailored for different animal species, applications and RF coils are available. Most of them are equipped with a nosecone for gas anaesthesia, three point-fixation system (tooth-bar and ear-plugs), openings for throat access and body temperature stabilization.In addition animal beds can be equipped with a temperature controlled warming blanket.